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The Winners of Remote Work

nytimes.com

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Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#261

Post by roflc0ptic »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #199
mym1990 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccination numbers still have a lot of room to grow, the virus may mutate into something that has a lower kill rate, the vaccine efficacy will likely improve, etc...

My (limited!) understanding is that mutations that make pathogens more contagious but less fatal are evolutionarily advantageous, so to the degree we can talk about Covid-19 having “self-interest,” becoming ever closer to Bad Case of Flu is within it.

In the long term this evolutionary pressure is present, however, it's not an iron law - as I understand, in addition to becoming more transmissible, COVID variants have become a bit more fatal over time.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#262

Post by mym1990 »

roflc0ptic wrote: post #261
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My (limited!) understanding is that mutations that make pathogens more contagious but less fatal are evolutionarily advantageous, so to the degree we can talk about Covid-19 having “self-interest,” becoming ever closer to Bad Case of Flu is within it.

In the long term this evolutionary pressure is present, however, it's not an iron law - as I understand, in addition to becoming more transmissible, COVID variants have become a bit more fatal over time.

I've seen this as well. I feel like maybe worst case scenario is a virus that is silent, contagious, and eventually deadly, and can stick around long enough to infect others.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#263

Post by closeparen »

roflc0ptic wrote: post #260
closeparen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reason do we have to believe that there will be a point in the future with less COVID risk than there is today? By what mechanism will that arise?

Mass vaccination and exposure. The hope is that our immune systems will collectively get used to it, and its evolution will be constrained enough that, while it will continue to mutate, our immune systems will continue to have a "good enough" answer to it that we avoid the cytokine storm problem that's killing people.

At the rate things are going it would take decades to get everyone exposed, but much less time than that to lose natural immunity.

The only Americans who might be vaccinated in the future but aren’t vaccinated today are children under 12. The FDA is in no hurry on this because it doesn’t make much difference anyway (minimal vaccine risks loom larger next to minimal COVID risk).

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#264

Post by roflc0ptic »

closeparen wrote: post #263
roflc0ptic wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass vaccination and exposure. The hope is that our immune systems will collectively get used to it, and its evolution will be constrained enough that, while it will continue to mutate, our immune systems will continue to have a "good enough" answer to it that we avoid the cytokine storm problem that's killing people.

At the rate things are going it would take decades to get everyone exposed, but much less time than that to lose natural immunity. The only Americans who might be vaccinated in the future but aren’t vaccinated today are children under 12. The FDA is in no hurry on this because it doesn’t make much difference anyway (minimal vaccine risks loom larger next to minimal COVID risk).

I think this is a slightly-too-bleak-for-the-evidence take, because it's not clear how long immune defense persists. COVID antibodies tend to go away kind of quickly, but there are (so I hear) other mechanisms of defense which may persist longer.

Things could of course be much worse - it's possible that the COVID molecule is somehow unusually well situated for immune escape and length of immunity won't matter that much; those of us in countries that can afford it will get our semi-annual microchip infusion with the latest flavors.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#265

Post by mkmcde »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #182
handrous wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen, the smart ones with good business sense are the ones who make real money in the trades, and they're mostly doing sales, supervision, training, and maybe personally handling some limited amount of the trickier bits of the actual labor (or cases where they have to come back to fix things, if they really care about customer service), by some time in their 30s. They may acquire some minor, persistent…

> Like a lot of business, the real money's in selling other people's labor at a markup, not in selling your own labor. I hate that this is true, and am glad I found a way to make a living that avoids both, but congratulations on getting to the core of the matter with great clarity.

What do you do? Looking to do the same.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#266

Post by silksowed »

gringoDan wrote: post #82

This makes complete sense – just another example of power law dynamics of the internet. Short-term, we're going to see companies pursue a remote model in order to attract talent. This will be great for employees; live in Colorado, go on hikes and have a great lifestyle while commanding a SF salary! Longer-term, companies are going to realize that (except for the top ~10% of performers, who will always command a high…

i have plenty of gaps for short hikes but am yet to leave the house for it. next week ill test this out as recently i have run out of laundry to do during the boring parts of the day. good problem to have, need to be better about capitalizing on my free time

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#267

Post by silksowed »

hawthornio wrote: post #154
ghaff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entered the workforce in a very different time with very different tools which makes it hard for me to think through the counterfactual: "What if I had had to be remote when I first started working?" But I think it would have been very difficult and I might have been less successful as a result. Even today, I feel like I'm cruising a bit on existing in-person relationships. (I was large remote pre-COVID but I still…

I’m a fresh grad who has basically only worked remote (except a summer internship freshman year and TA-ing in person 2 years ago), so I’ll report back in 5 years as a counter-factual ;)

same here. i think i get plenty of mentorship with 3 one hour calls with boss weekly. as far as in person networking events, i see no reason i cannot fulfill this with traveling to conferences. a conference will be a time i go all in on networking and connecting with the industry.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#268

Post by jjav »

kccqzy wrote: post #121
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #48

> Avoiding the office saves employees money — in commuting costs, for example It saves money for businesses exponentially more. The office space, associated utilities, physical security, cleaning, supplies, insurance, etc. are insane amount of savings. I owned a small "remote business" in the 90's and it allowed me to be competitive with multi-million ventures.

And now the employee has to pay out of pocket for that ~100sqft or so of the home that has become an office: the heating or air conditioning of that space, the implicit cost in rent when the employee seeks a bigger place to rent, etc.

True. I pay even more, as I rent a small office within walking distance of my house since the pandemic started, to have a quiet separate space for working.

But, I can't complain. While I don't like to pay for it, objectively the cost of the office isn't more than the cost of fuel for the commute and all those expensive lunches at the office.

And my commute is now a couple minutes on bicycle and I can be home any moment, run local errands during the day (impossible when I was an hour away), I no longer need to drive anywhere, etc. Life is better.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#269

Post by sails »

gringoDan wrote: post #82

This makes complete sense – just another example of power law dynamics of the internet. Short-term, we're going to see companies pursue a remote model in order to attract talent. This will be great for employees; live in Colorado, go on hikes and have a great lifestyle while commanding a SF salary! Longer-term, companies are going to realize that (except for the top ~10% of performers, who will always command a high…

great article, I think you should extend this thought as the market settles post pandemic. I also enjoyed some of the articles you linked. Great rabbit hole!

Any thoughts/improvements on the original post?

Fwiw, I'm building a team in South Africa to service Europe based on the exact premise of the article. Culturally similar, timezone, legal structure.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#270

Post by wrboyce »

helmholtz wrote: post #247
tkgally wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I intended to use a singular form of “anecdata,” not of “anecdote.” See, for example, [1] and [2]. [1] https://www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword/entries/anecdat... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Anecdote is the word to use here. It's a lovely word. By contrast, anecdata isn't a word at all, and has nothing to do with 'data' anyway. I have a similar pet-peeve with 'guesstimate'. It's just an estimate. It would scratch a big itch of mine if everyone just used plain words.

> anecdata isn’t a word at all

The OED would disagree with you there, and is a somewhat more authoritative source.

https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/82246007

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